Slik claims stage 5 of Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour

Rozanne Slik (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) won stage 5 at the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour, taking a three-up sprint ahead of Ellen van Dijk (Team Sunweb) and Malgorzata Jasinska (Movistar), while Wiggle High5's Lisa Brennauer moved into the overall lead with a fourth-place finish on the stage.

The 102km stage covered four laps of a 25.5km circuit, which climbed the Dörtendorfer Berg, and was dominated by a large breakaway group in the early going. The leaders gained four minutes on the bunch, but a concerted chase from multiple teams brought them back into the fold.

"I started to get a bit nervous, so I thought maybe we should put one rider on the front to chase along with Movistar and other teams that were not in the breakaway," Brennauer said. "And then the gap came down quite quickly."

Once the breakaway was caught on the final lap, it was a battle for position as teams tried to place their leaders in front near the bottom of the last time up the Dörtendorfer Berg.

Brennauer was the first to jump at the bottom of the climb and had a small advantage, but Slik, Van Dijk and Jasinska caught and passed her just before the line, knocking her from the stage podium. Although she missed out on stage glory, Brennauer came away with a better prize.

“I came into the last climb - it was 1km and very steep - I came in to the climb with the peloton because Emilia [Fahlin] had done one last really big pull," Brannauer said. "By the way the team was awesome again today.

“Tomorrow is a long climb on the menu so we’ll see,” Brennauer added. “I’ll have to get out my climbers legs for tomorrow."

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